Three

  THREE

  Justin D’Ath lives in Queenscliff, Victoria. He has written 50 books for children and young adults. His 12-book Extreme Adventure series has been published world-wide and made into a popular TV series. His YA novel, Pool, was shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Awards. He has written six CBCA Notable Books and gained five Yabba/Koala nominations.

  Also by Justin D’Ath

  Pool

  Extreme Adventures series

  Mission Fox series

  Lost World Circus series

  Stuff Happens: Cooper

  This book is for my nephew, Jack Winzer

  Published by Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of

  Hybrid Publishers, PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204

  Melbourne Victoria Australia

  www.hybridpublishers.com.au

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  © Justin D’Ath 2016

  This publication is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction should be addressed to Ford Street Publishing Pty Ltd

  162 Hoddle Street, Abbotsford, VIC 3067

  www.fordstreetpublishing.com

  First published 2016

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Creator: D’Ath, Justin, author.

  Title: Three / Justin D’Ath.

  eISBN: 9781925804058

  Target Audience: For secondary school age.

  Subjects: Youth – Conduct of life – Juvenile fiction.

  Dewey Number: A823.3

  © Cover illustration: Fernando Molinari

  © Cover design: Grant Gittus

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Contents

  1. Just a Baboon

  2. You Lose

  3. Mouse and Cobra

  4. Lion Feeple?

  5. Red Button

  6. My Monkey

  7. Dumb Animal

  8. Thank You

  9. Impossible!

  10. Return to Sender

  11. The S-Word

  12. Guilty

  13. Come and Get Us!

  14. Girlfriend

  15. It

  16. Boys Cannot Sew

  17. Handsome Nurse

  18. Locked In

  19. Humans Before Brids

  20. Shot

  21. Truly Wrong

  22. Hole

  23. Suicide Bomber

  24. Please Stay Alive

  25. Countdown

  26. Mr Basketball

  27. Cell

  28. The Lion

  29. Superstar

  30. Two Times a Fool

  31. Tricks and Lies

  32. Mustafa

  33. Abomination!

  34. Backpack

  35. Not Someone

  36. Destiny

  37. One Important Thing

  38. Part-Monkey

  39. Right From Wrong

  40. Friend

  41. Three National Park

  1

  Just a Baboon

  The explosion that killed my parents happened halfway through Second Lesson. We all heard the dull thump, even though the Presidential Palace was fully two kilometres from school. Mr Chibei, our new teacher, was writing the traditional word for patriot on the chalkboard. He went still for a moment. The rest of us looked up at the windows. I don’t know what we expected to see – mightbe smoke? Mightbe the looping white trails of rebel mortars? – but all we saw were fat-bellied clouds.

  Storm clouds.

  We continued with our lesson. Mr Chibei wrote thunder, first in English, then in Zantugi, and we all felt relieved.

  I raised my hand. ‘How do you write “Happy Birthday” in traditional language, sir?’

  He smiled. ‘Is it someone we know, Sunday?’

  I knew what he was thinking – and I knew what everyone else was thinking, too – so I nodded and said what they all expected to hear: ‘My father.’

  While Mr Chibei scratched away with his chalk, I carefully copied the intricate Zantugi script into my workbook. I had not totally lied – the national holiday to honour my father’s birthday was less than one week away – but someone at school, a student in the International Class, had their birthday even sooner.

  In my locker downstairs was a CD by her favourite American band and a card showing fifteen fluffy kittens in a basket. The card’s message was printed in English, the language of her country – and the language all of us used on our phones and tablets – but I planned to write Happy Birthday in the language of my country and give it to her at lunchtime.

  It is sad, really. It was my father, the President for Life, who decreed that Zantugi must be taught in all schools. How happy Baba would have been – how proud! – to receive traditional birthday greetings from his son.

  But even if I had thought of it, already it was too late.

  By midday the sky was clear again. Everyone gathered in the school quadrangle for Flag Raising. As we lined up in class rows, fists over our hearts, I sneaked a quick look to my right. While it was not demanded of the international students to honour our flag, most attended this daily ceremony. But today one was missing – the tall girl with straight-straight hair the colour of corn silk and eyes the same blue as talapipi flowers. The birthday girl. Her Australian friend, Jessica, saw me looking and did a squashy thing with her mouth to show that she was disappointed also. But she was not as disappointed as I was.

  One week ago, Holly Parr had let me kiss her.

  ‘Master Balewo,’ whispered one of the teachers behind me. ‘Eyes forward, if you please.’

  The ceremony was about to begin. Headmaster Okilo stood next to the flagpole, with the green and purple Zantugan flag folded over one arm. He was frowning in the direction of the main school building. Usually at this time, Miss Igwe, the school secretary, played a scratchy recording of the national anthem over the orange loudspeaker on the wall above the administration office. This was a signal for Headmaster Okilo to clip the flag to its cord and begin pulling it slowly up the flagpole. But today the loudspeaker remained silent. Instead, the door beneath it creaked open and Miss Igwe herself appeared. Behind her came two men in dark suits, dark glasses and white-white American basketball shoes. All three crossed the quadrangle towards Headmaster Okilo.

  Who are they? I wondered. What can be so important that Miss Igwe has dared to interrupt Flag Raising?

  She spoke softly to Headmaster Okilo, who then greeted the two visitors. One began speaking to our headmaster in a lowered voice, while the other and Miss Igwe peered up at the buildings that overlooked the quadrangle, turning their heads this way and that, as if they were searching for something.

  I began to feel uneasy. Could this interruption be connected to the dull thump we had heard during Second Lesson?

  Which had not really sounded like thunder at all.

  While most of us stood waiting to see what would happen, some boys from one of the junior classes began whispering. Several small heads turned; a finger pointed and all our eyes followed.

  On top of the street wall, just a couple of metres above the international students, sat a young male baboon.

  It was not unusual to see a baboon at school. Troops of them visited the city every day. They raided the food markets, they overturned rubbish bins, they even sneaked into the grounds of the Presidential Palace if Baba’s guards were inattentive. But the one on the street wall today was unusual. Someone had strapped its jaws closed with a leather muzzle and it wore a small, navy blue backpack. There was something else unusual about it, also – something to do with the shape of its head, which looked rounder, the forehead higher, than that of a
normal baboon. And its eyes seemed wrong. I had always thought that baboons had brown eyes – this one’s eyes were a creepy pale blue.

  It was behaving oddly, too. In one hand, the baboon held a square of paper. First it would look at the paper, then it would look down at us, then back at the paper.

  Suddenly there was a shout: ‘Everyone cover your faces! Don’t let it see you!’

  We all turned to see who had shouted. It was one of the men in dark glasses. Nobody obeyed him. Why should we? Anyway, he made no sense – why did it matter if the baboon saw our faces? It was just a baboon.

  ‘Do as he says!’ boomed Headmaster Okilo. ‘Cover your faces!’

  Some of my fellow students began covering their faces. Most of us did not. This was much too interesting.

  And it was about to become even more interesting.

  The second man in dark glasses – the one who had not shouted – drew a big silver pistol from inside his suit jacket. He aimed it at the baboon and began firing!

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  The noise was deafening. Instead of covering our faces, most of us covered our ears. Some of the girls and younger students were screaming.

  It is just a baboon! I wanted to yell at the crazy gunman. What harm can it do?

  True, it was a baboon with strange eyes – and a backpack and a muzzle – but was that any reason to shoot it?

  The gunman seemed to think so.

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Then: click, click, click.

  He was out of bullets. Praise God, I thought, for the noise had been truly loud. I looked for the baboon, but it had disappeared. There was just a square of paper, white on one side, coloured on the other, that came fluttering down into the quadrangle close to the wall.

  Holly’s friend Jessica bent and picked it up. She studied it for a moment, frowning, then turned the coloured side towards me, holding it up so I could see. Jessica was about fifteen metres from where I stood and the paper square was small, but it looked like a head and shoulders photograph of someone.

  You! the Australian girl mouthed silently.

  I pointed at my chest. Me?

  She nodded.

  I was still looking at Jessica, frowning too, I suppose, and wondering why the strange baboon had had a photograph of me, when Headmaster Okilo and one of the dark-glasses men came pushing through the crush of confused and frightened students in my direction.

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Balewo,’ said the man in dark glasses. Grabbing the folded flag from Headmaster Okilo’s arm, he flung it over my head.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I cried, trying to free myself, but strong hands restrained me.

  ‘Leave the flag there, Sunday,’ said the deep voice of Headmaster Okilo. ‘That monkey was here to kill you.’

  2

  You Lose

  They steered me across the quadrangle like a blind person. Through the green and purple cloth, I could hear some of the younger children whispering about the man with the gun, wondering why he had tried to shoot the baboon and asking who was under the flag.

  But all I could think of were Headmaster Okilo’s words: That monkey was here to kill you.

  They did not allow me to remove my flag-hood until we were inside the school building. By this time, the man who had tried to shoot the baboon had joined us. He was still holding his big silver pistol. We set off down the main corridor, the dark-glasses men on either side of me and Headmaster Okilo leading the way.

  ‘How was it going to kill me?’ I asked.

  ‘There was a bomb in its backpack,’ said the man on my left. ‘Once it identified you, it would have jumped down into the schoolyard and set it off.’

  ‘But it would have died, too.’

  ‘That is right. Along with all your friends.’

  My mind reeled. What was he saying? That the baboon was a suicide bomber?

  ‘Did you kill it?’ I asked.

  ‘I aimed over its head,’ said the man on my right, reloading his pistol as we walked. ‘I did not want to hit the bomb by accident.’

  ‘Who are you, sir?’

  ‘We were sent to protect you, Mr Balewo.’

  So they were bodyguards. But I had my own bodyguard. ‘Where is Mr Nwosu?’ I asked.

  ‘Mr Nwosu has been . . . relieved of his duties.’

  My feet stopped walking. Suddenly it all began to make sense: the monkey sent to kill me; the two new bodyguards; the thump that was not thunder.

  My lips said, ‘Is it my father?’

  The three men had gone on another few paces after I stopped. Now they came back. Only Headmaster Okilo would look me in the eyes. His own eyes were sad.

  ‘Your mother, too, I am afraid,’ he said gravely.

  No! I thought.

  ‘My deepest condolences, Sunday.’

  It felt like a dream, and I wished it was. O Ama! O Baba!

  ‘Excuse me,’ I gasped and ran fast to the boys’ bathroom.

  A short while later, we all stood near the door to the school’s outer courtyard where the staff and teachers parked their cars. Miss Igwe hurried down the corridor towards us, holding a glass of water. But when she offered it to me, I shook my head. Water could not undo what had happened.

  Headmaster Okilo reached for the door handle, but one of the bodyguards touched his elbow.

  ‘Please stand back, Headmaster. The monkey might be out there.’

  Pistol raised, the bodyguard cracked the door open a few centimetres and peered out through the gap. Then he pushed it open a little further, checking carefully in all directions. He even looked up. Satisfied that all was safe, he beckoned me forward.

  ‘See the white car over there, the Mercedes-Benz?’ He pointed an electronic key and the car’s blinkers flashed. ‘On the count of three, we are going to run over there. I want you to use those magic feet of yours, Mr Balewo. Show me how fast you can run, ne?’

  I nodded. A sports journalist had once called me Magic Feet, and now it was my football name. But who cared about football now?

  My parents were dead!

  ‘One . . .’ counted the man next to the open door, ‘two . . .’

  Before he reached three, I burst out into the bright daylight and ran fast-fast across the courtyard, more like a scared antelope than the sixteen-year-old schoolboy they were calling Africa’s Pelé. But my famous ‘magic’ feet did not let me down; even though I had left the building at the same time as the two bodyguards, I arrived at the Mercedes three metres ahead of them.

  Nobody had told me which seat to get into, so I jumped in the front. One of the dark-glasses men ran around to the driver’s side, the other slid into the back seat behind me. Doors thudded closed, the engine whirred, stones crackled beneath tyres.

  It did not occur to me, as the white Mercedes turned towards the exit, that I was leaving President Balewo Modern School for the very last time.

  The driver spoke – not to me, but to the man in the back – and his voice sounded tense: ‘Above the gate.’

  A wide stone and concrete arch spanned the school gates. Perched on top, like a statue on the tomb of a dead president, a small crouched figure watched the Mercedes approach.

  The man behind me leaned forward and put his mouth close to my ear. ‘Slide down under the dashboard, Mr Balewo. Do not let it see you.’

  Wordlessly, I slid down out of sight.

  ‘It might have seen him already,’ said the driver. ‘How good are their eyes?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the other man. ‘Do not slow down. It won’t do anything if it cannot make a positive ID of its target.’

  When I heard the word ‘target’, my eyes swam with childish tears. My parents had been targets. Clenching my teeth, I said a quick prayer. Mightbe soon I would join them.

  ‘Stay where you are, monkey,’ the driver said softly.

  He had placed his big silver pistol on the console between our seats. It was level with my eyes as I crouched on the floor of the car. I found myself looking at its checke
d wooden hand-grip.

  Things happened quickly after that and my thoughts turned away from prayers – one hundred per cent.

  There was a loud thump; the car shook; a shadow fell across the front seats and the driver stamped the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

  ‘Stay down, Mr Balewo!’ the man in the back seat yelled as we surged forwards. ‘Don’t let it see you!’

  But it was too late. Already I was halfway out from under the dashboard, sliding up into view.

  ‘Aaaaee!’ I gasped.

  The baboon filled the windscreen. It clung to a wing mirror on one side and the radio aerial on the other. Its ugly face was pressed flat against the glass in a mash of fur and gums and teeth, all of it encased in the twisted leather straps of its muzzle. Blood trickled from one of its nostrils. It must have landed hard! But what was a little pain to a suicide bomber? As it stared in at me through the blood and spit smeared glass, a look of triumph flickered in its creepy blue eyes. It was a look that said: Found you, now I am going to kill you.

  All it had to do was press a little red button attached to one of the shoulder straps of its backpack and – BOOM – I would be off to join my parents.

  But the driver was swerving the Mercedes violently from side to side and the baboon had to hold on with both hands. It could not reach the button without being thrown off the car.

  We were out on Adelo Road, normally one of the city’s busiest streets. Today there was no other traffic. It was strange. Usually a car could not travel along Adelo Road at more than 10 km/h, let alone swerve across lanes as we were doing. But we could not keep it up forever. Eventually we would have to slow down. Eventually we would have to stop swerving. As soon as we did, the monkey sent to kill me would press its little red button.

  It knew it would win.

  But it was wrong. Suddenly the look of triumph disappeared from its blue eyes.

  On the other side of the glass, pointing right at the baboon’s squashed face, was the barrel of a .357 Magnum pistol.

  ‘You lose,’ I said.

  And pulled the trigger.

  3

  Mouse and Cobra

  My ears were ringing. I could no longer see out.